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Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Actual Play Report from the Fringes of Wermspittle (Session Three; Happy Thanksgiving!)

Not everything wants to eat you...and it is always good to have friends, especially in weird places...

J's Notes from our Thanksgiving weekend game.

Camping in field outside Gadra's tomb. N hears horns and dogs barking on other side of river, calls on the Hobyah (using their Mark on her hand) and asks them to check it out. We break camp and head toward the yellow brick road away from the sounds. I almost step in a dodo nest. Take 3 intact dodo eggs. They're as big as ostrich eggs!

The new-new-kid S (N's guest) comes running toward us, hands bound, chased by three Pruztian hunters and dogs. We cut her free from her bonds. All of us run up hill to hide. One hunter leaves with his dog, we guess for reinforcements.

We spot three 9-foot albino penguins in the Red Weeds on other side of hill. N asks her Hobyah allies to scout so we can avoid them. Hobyah discover penguin-diving -- literally jumping into the gaping maws of the huge birds, sliding down into their stomachs and them disappearing only to come back and do it again, and again, and again. The Hobyah are immensely pleased and soon there are close to a hundred of them diving into the highly distressed giant albino penguin's mouths. Hunters hear the noise, approach the spot and are quite befuddled. Penguins are traumatized. The hunters leave.

We cross river away from hunters. Shallow water, but everyone falls. No injuries. Supplies soaked, some lost. Feels like we're being watched. There are Basajun, Woses, Jub-Jub Birds and Slithy Toves in the area, so it might only be something like that--some inoffensive being or animal not ouot to eat us all...besides there are three huge penguins lying exhausted and weakened behind us for any predators to go dine on at their leisure.

Farmstead downstream. Lots of bomb craters. One UXB, Franzikaner make. We decide to check out the farmstead. Avoid Slow Sand and Black Thorns getting there. Fields of mega cabbage and radishes. Hobyah use cabbages as trampolines. S makes comment about eating farmers. Morlock blood? (Dice were rolled, S does indeed appear to have some slight Morlock lineage in her background, but it is not entirely definite--she needs to be tested).

Farmstead has house, barn, mil; all bomb damagde and / or overgrown. No signs of recent habitation.

Check out house. 3 levels. Lower 2 looted or filthy from blown leaves, rain and elements. Seed company calendar on wall. Attic looks fairly intact. Q (The Thief-to-be) climbs up. He discovers a well-built Shooting Platform, where the farm families would fight-off the Biters and such over the long. dark winters. Lots of homemade weapons. He tosses down what might be useful, including family's Farmers and Mechanics Manual

Barn empty except owls and mice. Root cellar under barn. Door has Achuin lock with symbols for cleanliness, air quality, and pest control. Door is clear of debris and footprints. N consults books (currently carrying Every Good Child's Guide To Things To Bash and Burn, a gardening book, Our First Blue Book written in Etrurian, and the Farmers and Mechanics Manual) and turns off wards. Q picks lock. A (the Fighter) opens door. 12 steps down. A stays top as guard. Cellar has smoked meat, veggies, and herbs. We all take what we can. Go back up stairs. 3 Landsvattir at top. We think that they knocked A out. These things don't immediately attack us. N quickly consults her growing arsenal of books again. These creatures are protectors. They have watched over the farm for decades. Now that it is abandoned, they need to be released, or else in time they may curdle, spoil and turn into something rotten, vile and nasty. The group need to find their pact-anchor to release them since the family is gone. Leave all cellar-goods behind, so as not to offend the creatures, walk past landsvattir. They seem sad. Let us pass.

We dig through rubble. N calls on her friends the Hobyah for help. Eventually we find the anchor-object, a ceramic vessel that clearly radiates a slow, deep magical aura. We give it to landsvattir. They are released from their pact and we take cellar-goods. Landsvattir withdraw back to the Tulgey Wood, what we now can see was once an orchard.

We camp at farm for the night.

One of the funnier moments came after the game session was wrapping-up, when people started to realize that there was no way that Q could carry anywhere near as much loot as he was lugging around, all rolled up in his carpet...which was definitely magical.

The Hobyahs have really taken a liking to N's character, especially now that she helped them invent 'Penguin Diving,' which will cause no end of stress and turmoil back in Wermspittle when these little creatures start spreading the word to their fellows and they begin launching themselves into the attic-pens of the Tsalalians...

J did not get into the details regarding how the group handled the Pruztian hunters and their dogs--they were hunting after whomever stole the local Castellan's new armor and short sword from the shop back in Kridlist in our first game session. Not only did the group avoid getting spotted, the Hobyahs muddled-up all the tracks and signs of their camp-site that the hunters were not able to figure much out, other than a small group had spent time there recently...and this being a notorious area filled with nasty beasts, bandits and worse...there was no guarantees that it was a small group. Then they followed the sounds to find the penguins and Hobyahs and pretty-much decided it just was not worth it. Besides they now had a story worth telling back at their base-camp. something that might earn them a few free drinks, and that beat trudging about in the thickets on a fool's errand.

It was also quite a lot of fun to watch a group really make use of things they've found in the course of the game to solve a situation that might otherwise have gotten really, really ugly. Now besides the Hobyah's, the group has three friends out in the Tulgey Woods who might remember their act of kindness someday...

Unfortunately we did not encounter the Jabberwocky, any Damned Things, nor the Bandersnatch...this time...but we'll see what happens next time!

"I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create."

William Blake

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